


the good of the earth and sun

by sodiumflare



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Cupcakes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 21:31:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3870475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodiumflare/pseuds/sodiumflare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't miss a trick, do you?" Matt says, still grinning, and leans back into her hands. He sniffs. "Claire,” he says seriously, “have you been baking?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	the good of the earth and sun

Claire had a brother.

Not a lot of people know this, but. Claire had a brother. Well, a step-brother. Her father's, from what he called his practice marriage, but her grandfather raised the both of them, or tried to. It wasn't easy to raise kids in LA. Jordan had a dozen years on her, and as far as Claire was concerned when she was young, was from a different planet. An anger burned in him, bright and hot, and for as long as Claire could remember, he'd wanted to take on the world, get back whatever he thought it owed him and leave it with blood on its teeth. Claire never found out what that was: he never told her, and then, when she was six, he was shot by someone who'd evidently disagreed with him on that point. 

So Claire knows this type. 

Mike is the type. 

He is going to get himself killed out there. She's sure of it: she's stitched him up too many times (and shoved his shoulder back into joint, on one memorable occasion; he swore and said he was usually able to do it himself, which is information she files away for some other place, some other time) to come to any other conclusion. But she can't go with him, can't try to talk him down from his insanity. She couldn't stop him if she wanted to. She's not sure he could stop if he wanted to. So she keeps the phone close and keeps her kit well-stocked and keeps an overnight bag packed, and she keeps his secrets, too. 

The city looks different now. Claire sees more now, or maybe sees – differently: the texture of the kitchen linoleum, the heat of the blood under her hands at work, the way the bodega owner leaves bologna scraps from his sandwich for strays. She buys Girl Scout cookies from a small girl with quiet, hopeful eyes whose father swells up with pride when she counts out change correctly into Claire's palm. 

And after she realizes that the quiet sound she's been hearing from downstairs is a woman sobbing after a door slams, night after night, she brings home some pamphlets from work, dusts off her beaters and makes a dozen cupcakes. Claire takes some downstairs half an hour after the door slams for the night, and holds Angelina while she cries into the buttercream. 

Maybe it will make a difference, and maybe it won't, but it has to mean something. It has to. 

Mike sits on her couch, leaking hot blood onto the cushions: she'll try to get it out later, but she's basically given up on ever getting any money for it on Craigslist. Maybe she can donate it to a forensics lab, the way some people donate their bodies to science. She gently presses a butterfly bandage to his shoulder while he holds an ice pack to his cheek. (He tells her the bone's not broken. She's pretty sure he's not lying. She's getting better at noticing that, too.) 

He’s warm like a furnace. She’s pretty sure it’s not a fever – it’s just how he is. Mike runs hot. 

"Please don't go out again tomorrow," Claire says. 

Mike grins, bright and tired around a swollen lip, and twists to the right, stretching. It's almost dawn. He's had a long night. "Okay." 

"Get back over here. Stop moving. And that wasn't a yes." There's a cut along the back of his neck that's going to need stitches. At least she won’t need to dig any glass out this time. It’s all in the perspective. 

"You don't miss a trick, do you?" Mike says, still grinning, and leans back into her hands. He sniffs. "Claire,” he says seriously, “have you been baking?"

He takes a beating like no one she's ever seen. She didn't think anyone could keep swinging with cracked ribs. Evidently, she'd thought wrong. He won’t go down. It’s not in his nature. 

"There are cupcakes on the counter," she says. "As, I think, you damn well know. You can have one later, after I stitch this up." 

He smiles again. He sure did know where those cupcakes were. “Groovy.”

Needle in hand, she grasps his head, angles it slightly toward the window. The sun will be up soon. He is perfectly still under her hands. She slots a needle into his skin, tugs the thread though. 

Claire's grandfather had an old aloe plant in a clay pot on his dresser. The room was dim, but found some sun from the west in the late afternoon, and Claire remembers watching, over the years, as the plant's long, spiney arms grew towards the window, stretching slowly into the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Title cribbed from _Leaves of Grass_.


End file.
